


Just Another Day

by mldrgrl



Series: Adventures of The Lady Detective and The Writer [9]
Category: Californication (TV), The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Based on tumblr prompt requests: Under the influence & happy birthday





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [就只是另外一天](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13449138) by [amamitouko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amamitouko/pseuds/amamitouko)



 

Hank weighed his options carefully.  She'd never actually told him it was her birthday.  He'd actually asked when it was, twice.  The first time she answered, ‘why do you want to know?’  The second time she only said, ‘April.’

 

It was wrong, but when she was in the shower once, he opened her bag and took out her wallet to look at her ID. April 7th.  So he knew, but he wasn't supposed to know.

 

April 7th was a Sunday, which didn't mean anything if she was working a case.  Fortunately, she was currently only handling audits.  No major crimes to take charge of right now.

 

He thought about making her breakfast in bed, but her appetite was unpredictable.  He thought about waking her with his mouth, but in the morning she usually liked it quick and hard.  She was more into giving up control and taking it slow at night. He decided just to wait.

 

She had grown accustomed to his presence and his body so that she no longer startled awake when he pressed himself against her.  Some nights, she even unconsciously wrapped herself around him.  Quite a change from when they'd first started sleeping together regularly and she claimed she could share a bed, but she couldn't sleep and be touched at the same time when he'd spooned up to her one night.  Now, she actually seemed to like it.

 

He fit himself against her back and put his arm around her when she was still breathing deeply and evenly.  He liked when he could feel her waking.  There was the long, deep breath she would take, and then the way she stretched her back so that it pushed her ass back into his hips.  She always hummed dreamily when he touched her in that state between asleep and awake.  He slipped his hand up under her tank top and rubbed her abdomen and there it was.

 

“Good morning,” he whispered, pressing his face into her hair to find the sweet spot between her neck and shoulder.

 

“Good morning,” she murmured back.

 

His hand traveled further up her shirt and caressed one of her breasts.  She leaned back and turned her head to him to peck his cheek with her lips.

 

“Happy birthday,” he said.

 

Her body went rigid and each second that ticked by that she didn’t move was excruciating.  He went still as well, not knowing what else to do.  Finally, she rolled herself away from his body and he took his hand out of her shirt.  She didn’t move and he didn’t either.  Her eyes were open and she was staring at the wall.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

She gave a shake of her head that displaced her hair over her shoulder and he took a chance by reaching out and pulling it back over her ear.  She closed her eyes.

 

“Stella?”

 

“It’s just another day,” she murmured.  “It’s just another day.”

 

He brought her back to his chest and slipped his hand inside of hers when he put his arm over here this time.  He thought she was just doing the cliché woman thing about getting older when she wouldn’t tell him her birthday before.  This was something different.

 

“Talk to me,” he whispered.

 

“It’s just another day.”

 

“It is.  It’s just another day.”

 

“Fuck me and get it over with,” she said, flatly.

 

“What?”

 

She rubbed her ass against the erection that had been waiting for her to wake up, but that deflated somewhat since the change in her demeanor.  The impersonal tone and anger in her hips made him shrink even further.

 

“Stop,” he said, squeezing her hand.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“You’re what’s wrong.”  She managed to flip herself over in his arms and reached down inside his boxer briefs to squeeze his wilting erection.  “Just fuck me already.”

 

“Stella,” he hissed through clenched teeth, trying to will the excitement that ran through him away.  His body knew her hands and she knew how to touch him and he couldn’t help but get hard again.

 

She pulled his shorts down and pushed him over onto his back.  She’d removed her panties without him even noticing and she straddled his hips, her knees tight against his ribs.  He tried to stop her, but she swatted at his hands and held his wrists down with such brutal force that he was afraid one of them was going to get hurt.

 

He winced as she slid down on him.  She wasn’t anywhere near ready for him and he could see the pain of it on her face.  She was trying to force her body to want something that her head didn’t, and it protested the intrusion.  He didn’t move a muscle, not even to breathe, and she was frozen as well, her bottom lip pulled under her top teeth.  A tear trickled out of her eye and down her cheek and he yanked his hands out from hers so he could lift her hips off of him.

 

She collapsed onto his chest with a whimper and he rolled them to the side and held on to her tightly because he didn't know what else to do.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked.  “Stella?”

 

“Why can't you just be like everyone else?” she asked, so quietly he could barely hear her.

 

“I get that a lot,” he answered, rubbing her back and shoulders.

 

She rubbed her face into his neck and he could feel the dampness of her tears on her cheeks.

 

“My father died thirty-one years ago,” she said.  “Today.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“If I think of it as being something other than just another day, it...it brings it back to me.”

 

“If I’d known…”

 

“I know.  I should've told you.  I don't know why I couldn't.”

 

“You don't have to.”

 

“I want to.”  She rubbed her face into his neck again and then wrapped her arm under his and held onto his shoulder. She didn't say anything else so he started for her.

 

“You told me you were fourteen,” he said.

 

“It was my birthday.  He was in a hospice, but we were supposed to celebrate there.  He was in the middle of cardiac arrest when I got there.  I'd brought a cake for us, but I dropped it on the floor as a nurse pulled me out of the room.  They wouldn't let me see him.”

 

He thought about Becca and what she’d been like at fourteen, prone to hormonal rages and wild emotional mood swings.  She’d had to deal with a lot of shit from him and Karen, but he couldn’t imagine what she’d done if she lost either of them suddenly.

 

“I didn’t go to the funeral,” she said.

 

“You didn’t?”

 

“I was angry with him.  I was angry with him for a long time.  He broke promises to me, so I wanted to break ones to him.”

 

“What kind of promises?”

 

“To be kind to myself.  To forgive my mother.”

 

“Forgive your mother for what?”

 

“Never wanting me.  Seeing me as an inconvenience to her relationship with my father.  He loved me more than she was able to tolerate.  They divorced when I was around two, I think.  I saw her rarely after that.  She sent me to boarding school after my father died and that was actually a relief.”

 

He’d never heard her talk about her mother before, only her father.  He didn’t know if the woman was alive or dead, but it seemed as though it wouldn’t matter to Stella either way.  He could understand complicated parental relationships.

 

“What about being kind to yourself,” he said.  “How did you break that promise?”

 

She reached for his hand and then brought it down to her thighs.  He moved to pull his hand away, afraid for a moment that she was going to act out again, but she shook her head at him and moved his finger in a continuous line back and forth across her skin and suddenly he could feel the subtle difference of scar tissue.  He wondered how he’d never seen or felt it before.  He’d had his hands and his mouth over every inch of her body and never realized.  She was so very good at hiding what she didn’t want him to find.

 

“There was that,” she said.  “I would sneak at night and meet boys between the hedgerows that separated our dormitories.  And there was a variety of substances that altered my mood or state of mind.”

 

“Something must’ve happened to put you on a different path.  You wouldn’t be where you’re at now if not.”

 

“The rebellion probably lasted about a year.  My chemistry teacher found me one night passed out by a tree outside my dormitory.  She brought me into the infirmary.  The nurse there...I believe they had a dalliance.  There were rumors.  Either way, she kept quiet about it and lied to the headmistress on my behalf.  Told her I had the flu.  Ms. Davies, the chemistry teacher, told me that I was too smart of a girl to ruin my life.  And if I was caught ‘under the influence’ again, I would be expelled.  I didn’t like thought of returning to my mother.” 

 

“Was your father in law enforcement, by any chance?”

 

He could feel her smile against his chest.  “Hardly.  He owned an oil company.”

 

“Well, it’s good to know you’re not a complete walking cliché.”

 

“Hank, I’m...very sorry for not treating you very well this morning.”

 

“It wasn’t really me you mistreated, it was yourself.”

 

She nodded a little and he felt a few tears wet his shoulder.  He pulled her into a tighter embrace and stroked her hair.

 

“Will you promise  _ me _ you’ll be kind to yourself?” he asked.

 

“Will you promise not to leave,” she whispered.

 

“You’re stuck with me, Sherlock.”

 

“You’re stuck with me too, Watson.”

  
The End


End file.
